3 Fbi Inquiries Fail To Link Eatery To Gangster Clientele

At Joe Sonken`s Gold Coast Restaurant and Lounge in Hollywood, the list of preferred customers used to read like the cast of characters in GoodFellas.

One night it might be diminutive Meyer Lansky, the mob`s financial whiz, who helped turn Las Vegas into a gambling oasis and showed gangsters how to steal with a pen as well as a gun.

Another day, John Gotti, New York`s Dapper Don, with his penchant for expensive suits and perfectly coiffed hair, could show up accompanied by his bodyguards.

Or Wayne Bock, a former pro football player reputed to be an enforcer for the Chicago outfit, might stop by.

It was a tantalizing scene to the FBI: Here were loan sharks and killers, gamblers and thieves, the mainstays of the world`s most famous criminal organization, all gathering under one roof.

The FBI`s efforts to get the goods on Sonken and his underworld customers over a span of two decades are detailed in 99 pages of FBI documents obtained recently by the Sun-Sentinel in a Freedom of Information Act request made after Sonken died in June 1990 at age 83.

The documents reveal an agency trying doggedly -- and unsuccessfully -- to build a criminal case against Sonken and hoping to divine the doings of his gangster cronies.

Agents opened at least three investigations. They tried to place an electronic bug in the Gold Coast Restaurant and Lounge. They hid outside Sonken`s eatery and took thousands of photographs.

And in the end, Joe Sonken died an old man with no criminal record.

Sonken`s restaurant, still operating at 606 N. Ocean Drive, was known for its pasta and seafood dishes and the ambience of his dining room: blood-red leather booths, chairs and tablecloths, attentive waiters, strolling musicians and a view of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Elsewhere in the restaurant were street signs and other memorabilia from Sonken`s native Chicago. And a touch of irony: an autographed photo of singer Connie Francis, whose district attorney brother is thought to have been slain by the mob in New Jersey.

Holding court many nights at the first table that customers would see upon entering was Sonken, the short, rotund owner once described as blimp-bellied by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. In his last years, Sonken`s English bulldog, Bozo, usually sat drooling at his feet.

Sonken admitted to the FBI in 1966 that Meyer Lansky ate at his restaurant about 10 times a year, and that Lansky`s brother, Jake, dined there twice a month.

``(Sonken) could not explain why these individuals of the hoodlum element frequent his restaurant, except that he has good food,`` an FBI agent wrote.

Meyer Lansky lived for many years in the nearby Golden Isles community in Hallandale. Jake Lansky lived a few blocks from Sonken in Hollywood. Down the street from Sonken`s house was the winter home of Vincent ``Jimmy Blue Eyes`` Alo, another of Meyer Lansky`s associates and a Sonken customer.

``(Sonken) stated that he has no involvement with any hoodlums or racketeers other than having them visit his restaurant,`` the FBI agent who interviewed him in 1966 reported.

The FBI and local police, however, contended that Sonken`s restaurant was a mobster message center and meeting place.

In the ensuing years, federal agents and police officers photographed dozens of reputed Mafiosi entering and leaving the Gold Coast -- from lowly soldiers to crime bosses, such as Gotti of the Gambino family.

Sonken came to South Florida in the 1940s from Chicago and opened the Gold Coast in 1948. It soon got a reputation as a family restaurant -- crime family. The FBI began investigating Sonken in 1966 in an attempt to determine his involvement with organized crime figures. One FBI agent speculated in a report that Sonken may have instigated some of the gangster- related publicity ``to enhance his business.``

The 1966 investigation of Sonken ended when the FBI developed no information that he was involved in La Cosa Nostra.

In September 1979, the FBI again began scrutinizing Sonken in a racketeering investigation.The FBI hoped to gather evidence ``regarding activities of at least two major (Mafia) families,`` according to an FBI document.

The Gold Coast was a mobster mecca for men involved in activities that included extortion, gambling, prostitution, conspiracy to commit murder, corruption of public officials and the fencing of stolen property, according to one FBI report.

The FBI`s intent was to collect enough evidence to persuade a federal judge to authorize the placement of a listening device inside the Gold Coast.

The Miami bureau even requested that headquarters check on other bugs either in operation or recently terminated by the FBI to see whether the people being recorded mentioned Sonken. The search was done, but no references to Sonken were found, according to the FBI`s documents.